Corey's and David's Boat Project

IMG_2708.JPG
IMG_2711.JPG
1) The project was to build a boat, and mount a small electric motor to it. the goal was to have the boat go further or faster than the other groups boats.
materials: light-duty PVC plastic, hot glue, plywood, one nail, styro foam, a rubber band, and 2 pulleys.

2) At first, we thought that we should build a boat out of wood. but since plastic is lighter and easier to work with than wood, we decided to use light-duty PVC plastic. at the time, we were concerned on how to make a propeller.

3) first, we pre-cut and measured all the pieces so they would fit in a rain gutter. then, we heated and then bent the front of the bottom piece upward about 45 degrees. then we glued on the sides, and sealed the sides with hot glue. then we glued the end on. finally, we glued on the top piece. after sealing the boat with more glue, we glued the small electric motor onto the rear, top of the boat after affixing a pulley to the shaft. we then designed a propeller onto a pulley attached to a nail on the underside of the boat. to connect the pulleys, we wrapped a rubber band under the boat. after many tests, we added different amounts of stryofaom the back of the boat to balance it to float correctly.
IMG_2709.JPGIMG_2710.JPG
4. When we used the styrofoam peanuts our boat was able to float, did not flip over and was able to travel through the water at a decent speed. But when the peanuts felloff we were forced to use styrofoam blocks to make it float. The blocks created too much resistence and it did not travel through the water very well, and it made the boat flip over in the water when the motor started going because it was not balanced correctly.

5) The boat needed to be wider or more evenly balanced so it wouldn't flip over. We also learned we needed to make our motor and the propellors on it more evenly balanced on the boat and they needed to be sraighter because the boat didn't go perfectly straight, it ran into the side of the ran gutter.